Fuels used in gas turbines are typically hydrocarbons in the form of oil, or natural gas. The fuel to be used in any particular stationary plant is generally determined by economics and fuel availability. Industrial processes often create combustible by-product streams. Examples include sugar mill refuse; petroleum coke from oil refineries; steel mill blast furnace gases; sawmill wastes and so on, which also can be converted into gas turbine fuels. All fuels can be characterized by a heating value in terms of BTU's per pound. The heating value may be defined as the energy available in the products of combustion when being cooled back to a reference temperature, and typically runs about 18,500 BTU's per pound for a light fuel oil.
The form and quality of the by-product fuels available from industrial processes varies and may require further processing to be suitable for use in a gas turbine. For example, petroleum coke or refinery bottoms can be gasified to produce a mixture of CO and H.sub.2 suitable for a gas turbine while allowing environmentally harmful contaminants (e.g., sulfur) to be removed. Even gaseous by-product fuels such as blast furnace gas need to be compressed to meet the needs of a gas turbine.